Like countless others, each of these young men served honorably in Iraq, but came home unable to cope with their memories of combat. Each one sought help from the military or from the Department of Veterans Affairs. But in each case, the hospital was overbooked, the counselors didn't listen, or the bureaucracy moved too slowly.

Only months after their return from war, each of these young heroes committed suicide.

On my blog, surgeonsblog, I recently posted an entry that I'd like to share with readers of Kos. It's my take, as a physician who spent a year in Vietnam, on what war does to people, and why it ought to be the last of the last resorts of a nation. If GWB and his cronies understood, we'd never have gone to Iraq.